L'Esprit de Chevalier Pessac Leognan 2017
Tasting Notes
Deep and dark, the dress hints at good potential. The structure, solid, built on dense but silky tannins, the volume in the mouth and the expressive and generous bouquet (ripe black fruits) reinforce this potential.
About The Wine
Since 1986, the Domaine created this label with practically the same grapes and quality standards that they use for their Grand Cru Classé, resulting in a complex, balanced, elegant, and well-structured wine.
Domaine de Chevalier is regarded as one of the most important estates in the prestigious Pessac-Leognan appellation. The estate adopts a unique approach during harvest where all grape sorting is done exclusively in the vineyards. To combat frost damage, they use wine machines and helicopters in certain vintages, which helps to mix the lower layers of cold air where the vines are with warmer air above the vines. These types of meticulous practices are how they garnered a reputation for producing great wine even in average vintages.
They continue to run as a family-managed estate. Olivier Bernard who began managing the estate at 23 years old in 1983 is now joined by his wife Anne Bernard and their two sons. Sustainable vineyard practices have been adopted to tend to the vines which are an average of 50 years old.
Surrounding many of the estates that performed best during the Graves Classification of 1959, Pessac-Leognan was established in 1987 in order to recognize the high-quality red and white wines produced here